


Nana

by BritishAssistant



Series: Inmate 0307 [1]
Category: Diamond Brothers— Anthony Horowitz, ナンバカ | Nanbaka
Genre: Abduction, Adult Fear, Canon Typical Violence, Cell 6, Child Soldier, Child in a prison, Compelling Voice, Darts, Elf typical violence, False Identity, Friendship, Gen, Heartthrob, Honey is a big softie really, Human Experimentation, Humor, Identity Swap, Kidnapping, Kiji is the best pheasant mom, Knives, Mama kiji, Okama, POV Multiple, Stabbing, Team as Family, Unrequited Crush, Wires, Yelling, cell as family, child criminal, child endangerment, crime lord, gang leader, knife fight, meeting new people, not so subtle mother henning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 02:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritishAssistant/pseuds/BritishAssistant
Summary: Kiji was trying to fill the third bunk in Cell 6 again.If the inmate he put in there would just keep himself out of trouble, everyone in the recreation room would be all the more grateful for it.It’s a pity then, that no. 0307 attracts trouble like honey attracts flies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which introductions are made.

Supervisor Hajime Sugoroku was almost regretting winning the New Year’s Tournament. Almost.

It meant that for one hour a week, he was required to play babysitter to not only the troublemakers of Cell 13, but also to their weird “friends” from other buildings, forcing him to endure the company of the other supervisors (and occasionally the terrifying scrutiny of the Warden) when he could be finishing off some valuable paperwork.

And given how gregarious Cell 13 turned out to be, it meant new inmates were joining the chaos almost weekly. It had gotten to the point where all of Building 13, half of Building 5, and select cells from Buildings 3 and 4 had been crammed into the tiny recreation room before he put his foot down and restricted it to only those who had participated in the New Year’s Tournament (and Tsukumo, if he was good that week).

His stomach began cramping up at the mere thought of that bedlam even now.

So that was why any addition to their “cozy” little groups made him more than a bit apprehensive. He still remembered the time that bastard Kenshirou had claimed that he had added most of Building 4 to Cell 10 just to fuck with him. Stupid dog had thought it was funny until Hajime called the Warden to report a mass escape from Building 4.

However, today such an addition was unfortunately not someone he could kick out so easily as he could the dog and monkey’s stupid pranks.

Kiji was trying to fill the third bunk in Cell 6 again.

Inmates 0303 and 0382 entered with their usual melodramatics and gravitated towards 11 and 15. Hajime was privately of the opinion that those two were a bad influence on his inmates that resulted in him needing to beat out whatever half-baked ideas they’d put into Cell 13’s escape attempts.

The okama wasn’t far behind, as his nasally complaints of “Hey Hajime, there’s no smoking in here! You’ll give my beautiful Cell 6 lung cancer!” were ear-achingly loud.

Hajime begrudgingly put out the perfectly good cigarette he’d been enjoying, and turned to glare at the supervisor of Building 3

There was someone hiding behind Kiji.

A small hand gripped tightly onto his uniform, tugging the material slightly as the owner moved away when the monkey tried to peer around the supervisor to see who it was.

The okama half-turned and began fussing over them. “Now, now. I know it’s scary with all these ugly people here, but you need to try and make more friends, ok? I know Hani and Trois will look out for you, but it’ll be bad if the only people you associate with are those underwear thieves—you don’t wanna pick up their bad habits, do you?”

 _Was he a mother trying to drop off her child at kindergarten?_ Hajime wondered, teeth clenching reflexively. Kiji spoiled his inmates, there was no doubt about that, but this was taking it to a whole new level of ridiculous.

“Look, the monkey, gorilla and dog over here are the scariest people in the room.” Kiji soothed. “If you can introduce yourself to them, then the others won’t be scary at all, I promise.”

“Who’re you calling a gorilla?” Hajime ground out as the monkey screeched “Who the hell’re you calling a monkey?!”

The two glared at one another with deep dislike. Kenshirou just huffed a disdainful sigh.

The hand holding onto Kiji’s uniform gradually released its grip, and the inmate it belonged to shuffled into view.

It was a child with a soft-enough face to be just entering his preteens. He was probably northern European based on the blue eyes, wan skin and atrociously-cut pale brown hair.

The boy fidgeted a little, then tried to look them in the eye (which required him to crane his neck quite a bit due to his short stature) and bowed low. A large “7” was tattooed into the shaved back of his head.

“It is nice to meet you. I am inmate number 0307 of Cell 6, Building 3. My name is Johnny Powers, but most people here call me “Nana”. I entrust myself to your care.” His Japanese had a heavy English accent, but sounded natural enough.

Kiji preened, obviously proud of adding such a well-mannered inmate to his “beautiful” Cell 6.

Hajime wasn’t fooled though (despite his stomach gurgling at the unfairness of being stuck with all the trouble-makers). In his line of experience, it wasn’t uncommon for prisoners to put up a well-behaved facade in order to try and give the guards the slip later. The fact that 0307 was a kid just made him more suspicious in the supervisor’s eyes. Nanba was a prison for those that the world couldn’t handle— for someone this young to be sent here, he must be at least on the same level as some of the world’s most vicious serial killers or its most proficient escape artists.

The unconscious glare he was sending the boy as he reflected on this made the child slowly grow paler and paler, until he was trembling slightly and his eyes were tearing up.

Kiji frowned, carefully placing himself between Hajime and his newest charge. “Hold it you, stop trying to frighten my inmate! Didn’t you ever learn it’s rude not to answer when someone introduces themselves to you?”

Samon snorted. “Forget him— gorillas are too stupid to have any manners in the first place.”

“ **Say that to my face, monkey.** ”

Hajime vaguely registering the dog scoffing as he put the monkey in a headlock, and turning to the new inmate. “I am Kenshirou Yozakura, Supervisor of Building 4. The monkey currently being killed is Samon Gokuu, Supervisor of Building 5. The rude gorilla bastard is Hajime Sugoroku, Supervisor of Building 13.”

Hajime released his hold on the monkey to turn towards the dog when 0307 spoke. “Building 13…is the one we’re in now, right?”

“That’s right Nana-chan! Can you remember what this building specializes in?” Kiji questioned indulgently.

0307 furrowed his brow in thought. “I remember Building 4 is culture, and 5 is athletics, probably. Building 13…is for problem inmates?”

Kiji clapped his hands in delight. “Yes! Good boy, you got it right!”

The child gave a small smile at the praise, cheeks flushing slightly.

“Oi, just what is it your shitty education building is teaching about mine?!” Hajime fumed, frightening the boy right back into his previous state.

The stupid okama ignored him, too busy ruffling 0307’s terrible hair. “Right, now why don’t you go see what Hani and Trois are doing to try and make some new friends? I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Yes Kiji-San.” The boy nodded. Turning to the other supervisors, 0307 bowed again. “It was nice to meet you, Yozakura-San, Gokuu-San, Sugoroku-San.”

He scampered off quickly to where inmate number 0382 was arguing with 11.

Kiji sighed melodramatically. “You know, I think I’ve finally managed to fill the third spot in cell 6. Nana-chan’s so well behaved and sensitive, I haven’t had any trouble with him whatsoever, and the other children are fond of him too. I think I may have finally found someone in this prison who I can talk about the finer things in life to.”

The monkey eyed him suspiciously. “You’re going to try and turn him into an okama, aren’t you.”

“DON’T SAY THAT LIKE IT’S SOME KIND OF INFECTION!!”

Hajime and the dog shuddered in unison. They already had more than enough okama running around without adding another one to the mix.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which yelling takes place.

Hani bristled as he felt his latest annoyance ran over to him. Just when he was about to trounce Uno at darts again! Sure he may have lost the past two games, but darts were Hani’s specialty. He wasn’t about to get beaten by that shrimp-haired bastard on his home turf!

Nana stopped about a foot from him, looking on curiously as he lined up his shot. “Kiji-San said I needed to come over here to make friends.”

“What the hell for? You’ve already got Nanba’s number one heartthrob for a cell mate.” Hani grunted, examining the board carefully. His arm tensed to throw.

“He said that you and Trois-San are bad influences. Because you steal bras and he steals panties.” Hani’s shot veered wildly at the blasé accusation. “Are you winning?”

“ **NOT ANYMORE I’M NOT!!** ” Hani roared, outraged. The nerve of this kid, throwing around such a baseless allegation! “Besides, why would I stoop to stealing worthless upper underwear?! Everyone knows that panties are the pinnacle of a man’s dream!!”

Nana looked thoroughly unimpressed by his heartfelt claim. “So what? You’re still a perverted underwear thief regardless.”

Hani scoffed. “Whatever. I wouldn’t expect a kid whose balls haven’t dropped yet to understand.”

Nana reddened in shame at the truth in his words, mouth gaping as he tried and failed to come up with a comeback. Hani enjoyed the small sense of satisfaction from being able to shut one of his cell mates up at least, even if his throw had to be ruined to do it.

Just then the shrimp-bastard decided to interject himself into a conversation that didn’t involve him, and clamped a hand on Hani’s shoulder. “Jeez, and I thought you just had a bad attitude! A pervert on top of being short-tempered— no wonder you had to steal women’s underwear, they probably wouldn’t go near you otherwise.”

“I HAVE MORE EXPERIENCE WITH THEM THAN _YOU_ , SHRIMP-BASTARD!! AND DON’T TOUCH ME!!” Hani swiped at the hand on his person. Nothing pissed him off more than Uno’s shit-eating grin—

“Wow, Hani-kun even looks good defending his reprehensible habits and bad luck with women!”

—Except, perhaps, for Trois’s infuriating put-downs that he said with a sweet tone and a sincere smile. “ **Trois, you BAASTAAARD!!!!** ”

Uno pretended to wiggle a finger in his ear. “Noisy as always, huh? It’s probably a miracle I haven’t gone deaf yet from arrow-head over here.” He held out a hand to Hani’s latest annoyance. “By the way, it’s nice to meet you. I’m prisoner number 11, but call me Uno.”

“I-I’m number 0307, but Hani-San a-and Trois-San call me Nana. I’m their new cell mate.” Nana stuttered slightly, returning the handshake. Which was weird, because this was the first time Hani had ever heard Nana trip over his words. “I-I’m very sorry, y-you probably get asked this a lot, but a-are you from England?”

Uno grinned and scratched a cheek with a finger. “You can tell from the accent, huh? Yeah, I’m from a place called Birmingham— probably don’t know where that is though—“

“I know where that is!” Nana insisted, sounding more fired up than Hani had previously seen him. “I-I’ve never been there, but I could find it on a map! I’m from a small village between Essex and Hertfordshire.”

For some reason, the grin on Uno’s face became a mega-watt beam. “Seriously?! Man, it’s been a while since someone from my country came to Nanba! Everyone here is Japanese, American or Chinese.”

“My beautiful self is French.” Trois interjected from where he was trying to teach the human lock-pick how to play billiards.

“I-I’m German.” The fire guy from New Year’s added tentatively from where he was playing mahjong with the braided chinaman and the trap guard.

“I’m from Texas!” The green-haired brat from 13 yelled cheerfully, waving his game console.

“Pretty sure that is America, Nico!” The gambler called back fondly. He turned to the kid. “Anyway, welcome to Nanba! I’m this prison’s number one **heartthrob**.”

“…You know, that’s the third time I’ve heard that phrase since I came here.” The boy’s tone was more than a little exasperated, but still upbeat. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Uno-San.”

Nana’s eyes were practically goddamn sparkling and his smile almost matched Uno’s for intensity. The way he was looking at the shrimp-bastard, was almost like…

“Oh HELL no.” Hani bodily forced himself between the two, and steered Nana away from the shrimp-haired bastard towards Trois. “No, no, no. Fuck **NO**.”

“Hani-San, what—?” Nana protested, trying to dig his heels in.

“That’s Hani- _Senpai_ to you!” They were off the coast of Japan, so he at least should get to be called by the proper honorific as the senior inmate, like in _Ninja Kamikaze_ , dammit!

He safely deposited one annoyance away from the other, and spun the boy around to face him, hands an iron grip on his shoulders. The look on Hani’s face was slightly manic, the arrows in his hair jabbing the air wildly.

“Listen to me. I don’t fucking care if you wanna be all buddy-buddy because you come from the same shitty country or whatever— **under NO circumstances are you allowed to start mimicking that cowardly, cheating, plain-looking shrimp bastard!** ”

He already had to deal with Uno in the recreation room. Hani wasn’t going to chance having a mini-version in his _cell_ with him.

Nana blinked, a stupefied look crossing his face. “… _What_?!”

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING PLAIN-LOOKING, YOU STUPID ARROW ASSHOLE!!” The aforementioned cowardly, cheating, plain-looking shrimp bastard screeched.

“ **YOU HEARD ME YOU THIRD-RATE BRAIDED IDIOT!!!** ” Hani bellowed in return. “ **STOP TRYING TO CORRUPT MY CELLMATES WITH YOUR WEIRD UNATTRACTIVE STUPIDITY, YOU LIMEY BASTARD!!!** ”

 ** _“BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP BEFORE I COME OVER THERE TO BEAT YOUR ASSES!!!”_** The bald gorilla roared.

Nana let out an “eep!” and somehow managed to escape Hani’s grasp to hide behind Trois in less than three seconds.

Trois gently patted the trembling child’s head. “There, there, the gorilla’s not coming after you, see? Nothing to be afraid of.”

“He hates me.” Nana rasped, staring sightlessly at Trois’ jumpsuit, fisted hands shaking. “He definitely hates me. No one glares like that unless they hate you. He’s going to murder me the first time he gets the chance.”

Hani frowned from where he’d taken shelter behind the billiards table. Great, he’d just gotten the kid over the last attempt, now all his good work was put to waste thanks to that shitty gorilla. Nana looked just as much of a nervous wreck as when he’d arrived.

He was about to get up and start telling his junior that not everyone had it out for him, when the human lock-pick spoke up. “Hajime wouldn’t do that. He gets angry at us, and beats us up, but he wouldn’t ever do something like that. It goes against the nature of “supervisor”, and Hajime is the first to get pissed off when someone does that. He won’t kill you. None of the guards will. They just wanna keep us here, not hurt us.”

Hani pouted, somewhat put out at the emotionless brat stealing his thunder. Then he glanced at the kid, and his skin prickled.

“Do you _promise_?” Nana’s eyes were wide and focused, penetrating in their scrutiny.

It was the same gaze Hani had been confronted with when he had found the boy practically folded in half balanced on top of a bathroom stall during lunch, gripping the knife he’d been stabbed with in case his attacker happened to look up while searching for him.

The inconsistent human key nodded. “I promise. I’m Jyugo. Nice to meet you.”

All the tension seemed to drain out of the child’s posture, and his eyes dropped. “I’m Nana…pardon me if this is rude, but aren’t your feet cold?”

The gazes of everyone at the billiards table dropped to the drowning expert’s bare feet. “Ah, well, the cuffs make it kind of hard to wear shoes, so—”

“Aren’t sandals or house shoes an option though? They don’t reach your ankles.” Nana frowned. “It’s bad to just go around like that— they could get cut open if you step on something sharp, or your toes could get broken into an ugly mess if someone with shoes trod on them. You should ask your supervisor for something suitable that goes with your look.”

Uno, who was cowering on the other side of the billiards table, heaved a sigh. “And here I was wondering if you were really a part of the pretty-boy Cell. Guess you are one of them after all, huh?”

Nana reddened, and began fidgeting like the lock-pick had been throughout his scolding.

Trois smiled. “Wow, your jealousy is really uncool, Uno-kun! Though it is to be expected in the face of the beauty of Nanba’s number one heartthrob~”

The shrimp-bastard ground his teeth in envy. Hani snorted at the sight. “C’mon limey. I still need to beat you at darts again.”

“Excuse you, I was winning, you arrow bastard!” The gambler scampered back over to the board.

“You wish, braided asshole!” Hani followed him, intent on proving his mastery.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the lock-pick direct Nana over to the sickly kid and the chi guy. Every time he happened to glance over, they all appeared absorbed in the shitty game console the druggie was playing on.

Then Uno would make a smart-ass remark about mother hens or some fuckery, and Hani would refocus on destroying the shrimp bastard on the dartboard.

About half-an-hour in, Nana ran over again. “Hani-Senpai, do you know where the bathrooms are?”

Hani raised an eyebrow. Last time he’d been asked that question, he’d ended up following a murderer following his cell mate. “D’you need to wash your hands or something?”

Nana pulled a face. He was still irritated that Hani had made him do that immediately after getting down from the top of the stall— even though they _were_ filthy. “No. I just need to go.”

“How the fuck should I know? I don’t live here.” He turned back to his throw.

The braided moron piped up, “Seitaro will tell you— he’s the wimpy pretty boy over there. He won’t bite like Hajime does.”

“Thank you Uno-San!” Nan bowed, and ran to the guard who’d managed to beat Kiji at New Year’s. After speaking with both him, the gorilla and Kiji, the pair left, and the guard returned a few minutes later, talking to the gorilla. Based on what Hani could overhear, a guard called Kuu was keeping watch.

Well, it wasn’t like Nana could get into much trouble without Hani knowing about it—after the lunch incident, he’d made the boy keep one of his special bullets on him at all times.

Hani smiled as he got another bulls-eye.

His latest annoyance would probably be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Nanbaka characters are property of Futamata Shou. I just wrote about them.
> 
> Hani didn’t get along very well with Nana at first. It took a little time and a near death experience for him to warm up to his new cell mate.
> 
> Kiji does not know about the stabbing. Hopefully, Kiji will never know about the stabbing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things begin to go wrong.

Hajime Sugoroku glanced at the clock.

0307 had been a while now in the bathrooms. That brat of Kiji’s had better not be plotting an escape attempt, or else…

He turned towards Seitaro. “Oi, send someone to check up on 0307. He’s been gone too long and I want him back here on the double.”

The junior guard nodded. “Yes, Supervisor!” He left to carry out Hajime’s orders.

The Supervisor himself settled back, wishing he had a cigarette.

Today had been quiet so far by the standards of this group, and he had mercifully only had to endure a minimum amount of stress that came from dealing with his coworkers and their weird charges.

He really hoped that the new kid wouldn’t get any bright ideas to cause trouble that would result in his stomach acting up again.

* * *

 

The guard pulled on his gloves, smiling brightly as he walked.

He hadn’t been here long, but what an exciting place this was! New things to see and do every day. Even now, he had a brand spanking new assignment when he’d previously expected to still be on monitoring duty.

Collect Inmate 0307, alias Johnny Powers, from the bathrooms and deliver him back to where he belonged.

The guard’s smile widened when he came across the public bathrooms of Building 13. This was probably the place! Now all he had to do was wait until 0307 came out.

A furious hissing and spitting from somewhere around ankle level had the guard looking down in surprise.

Where had this dirty beast come from? The guard knew very well that animals were not allowed in any of the buildings of Nanba unless they had been specially trained, like Building 4’s dogs. And this mangy feline was hissing at him! Clearly it was some kind of stray that had managed to get in.

What to do with it though? Despite the animal’s unfriendliness towards him, the guard was quite fond of cats on principle. With their cute faces and playful natures, he felt as though he connected with them on a spiritual level. He didn’t really want to hurt the frightened thing, hostile though it may be.

Looking around, the guard noticed a conspicuous air vent beside him.

That was it!

Carefully, the guard pried the grate open. Then he advanced on the spitting beast, which had nearly doubled in size in an attempt to intimidate him. The animal did not move from its spot, meaning the guard only had to weather its sharp claws when he picked it up. Its scratches barely tickled him, but its yowls were painful on his sensitive ears.

He quickly tossed the cat into the air vent, and shut the grate behind it.

The beast’s frenzied attempts to escape from its new prison activated the motion sensors within the vent. These sensors triggered a mechanism that began dispensing the sleeping gas used to knock out would-be escapees. The animal’s cries gradually died down, until the only sound to be heard were its soft breaths in sleep.

The guard smiled proudly. There, no harm, no foul. He could always come back and remove it later. Maybe even take it home!

The sound of a door shutting behind him had the guard executing a smart about-face. A young man in a standard-issue Nanba jumpsuit blinked up at him, startled. He’d obviously not known that he was coming.

The guard smiled. “Inmate 0307, Johnny Powers?”

The boy nodded nervously, fidgeting with his sleeves. “Yes sir?”

How polite he was! “I’ve been sent to collect you by my supervisor. If you would follow me?”

“A-alright sir.” Powers glanced around. “Um…”

“Is something wrong?” The guard asked.

“No-not really…I was just wondering where Kuu was, sir.” His voice was a nice tenor that bespoke the last vestiges of childhood.

“Kuu?” The guard’s head tilted to the side. “Who’s that?”

The boy looked around again, before meeting the guard’s gaze again. “N-no one, sir.”

“Let’s get going then. We don’t want my supervisor getting mad at us for being late, do we?” The guard ribbed kindly.

The inmate shuddered. “No sir.”

He began leading the inmate away.

* * *

 

Hani gritted his teeth.

His arm tensed to throw.

And then another slight tug from the practically taunt wire wrapped around his pinky finger shifted his hand slightly so the dart’s trajectory spiraled to land directly next to the bullseye.

**Again**.

Uno’s smarmy grin widened as Hani’s jaw twitched. “Oh my, Arrow-kun, you don’t seem to be doing so well. Need to take a break? Wanna give up already and admit I’ve got you beat~?”

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH BEFORE I SHUT IT FOR YOU, SHRIMP BASTARD!!” Hani yelled indignantly. Lowering his voice somewhat, he held up his right hand. “It’s not _my_ fault that every time I throw, _someone_ messes it up!!”

“C’mon, only losers try and shift the blame—” The braided asshole stopped up short, grin fading as he caught sight of the wire. “Seriously? How come you have one of those set up in here?”

“I don’t.” He ground out. “It’s to ensure that **someone** doesn’t get fucking lost, or manage to get himself into another shitty mess _again_.”

Uno blinked as his unbelievably small brain tried to process the obvious hints Hani was dropping. His eyes lit up when it clicked, but for some reason that shit-eating grin dawned on his face again.

“ _Seriously_? You put Nana on a _leash_?!” The shrimp bastard began guffawing, practically drawing the attention of everyone in the room to Hani’s secret. “I just thought you were a mother hen, Arrow-kun, not a full-on helicopter parent!!”

“ **Shut up** , you moronic, braided _asshole_ , do you _want_ to expose me?!” Hani hissed. Luckily the guards seemed distracted by something else, so none of them overheard anything that could have revealed his secret weapon.

He heaved a sigh. “That kid _needs_ to be put on a leash. He doesn’t look it, but he seems to have a knack for attracting unsavory types of attention—“

“Like yourself?” Uno interjected with that same, shit-eating grin.

It took every ounce of control in Hani’s body not to smack the plain-looking bastard right then and there.

“ _Like_ that goddamn serial killer who got sent here after they caught him late last year. The one who liked chopping up his victims and throwing their bodies into the ocean, _remember_?” Hani took a moment to enjoy the color draining from the shrimp asshole’s face as his confident posturing devolved into a state of quivering fear.

“Th-that crazy maniac is a-actually here? In Nanba?!” Uno gulped to try and control the high-pitched quaver his voice had turned into, and lowered his volume somewhat. “A-and he tried going after Nana?!”

Hani scoffed. “Luckily, I was there to frighten him off, so everything worked out fine—mostly.” He still couldn’t quite forget the covert flashes of pain on his junior’s face from the stab wound that the murdering shithead had managed to inflict on the middle of the cafeteria with almost no one noticing.

If Nana didn’t have such a debilitating phobia of doctors and hadn’t begged on hands and knees for his silence, Hani would have informed Kiji of the situation right away to get the boy carted to the infirmary. He still wasn’t quite sure he shouldn’t.

“What, did you open your mouth and scare him away with your awful personality or something?”

Hani felt his blood pressure reach dangerous levels in his rage. “ **WHY YOU PLAIN—** ”

The taunt wire around his pinky finger began jerking.

It danced, jumping up and down as though the other end were attached to a bucking bronco trying to throw off its rider. It felt like it was trying to pull his fucking hand off.

Hani’s mouth went dry.

When he had given the bullet to Nana, he had laid out very specific instructions for its use.

Don’t tell Kiji you have it. Trois can know, but don’t tell him why.

Don’t leave it lying around so anybody can pick it up. Keep it in your pocket where no one can see.

Try not to jostle it if you aren’t in danger. No fucking around and yanking on it for shits and giggles.

If you don’t feel safe, pull on the wire multiple times to let him know. Use the wire to find your way back to him if you get lost.

If you’re about to die, hold the bullet tight in your hand and pull with all your strength.

“Hani-kun? What’s wrong?” He vaguely heard Trois’s soft call through the blood pounding in his ears.

God _fucking_ dammit. Why had he let that useless annoyance go alone?! All he was good for was running away and hiding in weird places, he was too small to take on a guy of the sick druggie’s size, let alone any of the real monsters in Nanba.

Monsters. The guards. The guards would have this under control, they had to—

“ **WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU _LOST_ MY INMATE?!?!**” Kiji screeched, looking every inch as murderous as an eagle who had found an interloper stealing its eggs.

The pretty-boy guard quailed, tears in his eyes. “I-I went to see i-if h-he was the-there, but 0-0307 was gone!! I-I-I c-couldn’t e-even find K-k-th-the guard we sent wi-with him!!”

“ **IF I FIND SO MUCH AS A _HAIR_ OUT OF PLACE ON HIS HEAD BECAUSE OF YOUR _NEGLIGENCE_ —**”

“Stop **squawking**.” The old man gorilla grunted, superimposing himself between the crying guard and Kiji’s wrath. “If you’ve spoiled your inmates so much they give you the slip the moment they’re out of sight, you can’t take it out on others.”

Kiji sputtered. “Give me the—?! Nana-chan’s a good boy!! He would never even think of doing something awful like that!! Don’t confuse him with the ugly problem children you have to deal with!!”

The balding gorilla bared his teeth. “ **Wanna run that by me again, bird-brain?** ”

The monkey shook his head mockingly. “Jeez, does every prisoner who enters this building gain a knack for escaping or something?”

“ **SHUT YOUR MOUTH, MONKEY!!** ” The pair of incensed supervisors chorused.

Hani clenched his jaw. Fine. So the guards were just gonna bicker uselessly. It just meant he’d have to step up, _again_.

He began looping his fingers around the taunt, jerking wire, wincing slightly as it bit into his skin. He widened his stance, and prepared to pull. Honestly, why did he always have to play savior to some gu—

The wire slackened.

Hani stared for a moment at the now motionless length twined about his hands. A slight tug had the material flowing freely and easily towards him, as though no weight were attached to the other end.

**FUCK**.

* * *

 

Hajime Sugoroku was at his wits end when the stupid arrow kid tried to rush past him into the hallway.

He reacted instinctively, delivering a solid right hook that sent the punk sprawling.

“ **HOW DARE YOU HIT MY BEAUTIFUL INMATES!?! THEIR FACES ARE ALL THESE PRECIOUS CHILDREN HAVE!!** ” The squawking bird screeched. God, if his voice got any higher, only bats would be able to hear his complaints.

Hajime pinned him with a glare. “The punk tried to escape. It seems your own inmates don’t even fear you enough to wait until you’re gone to try and break out.”

Kiji turned purple.

Surprisingly, it was the brat on the ground with a nosebleed who replied. “LIKE HELL I’M TRYING TO DO THAT, YOU SHITTY, BALDING, OLD MAN GORILLA!!”

15 came forward, arms raised in a feeble attempt at pacification. “Y-yeah, Hani wasn’t trying to run away. He’s just worried—”

“Worried about what?! This doesn’t concern you. Get back in there and shut up, before **I make you.** ”

15 hid behind 11 at the threat, though the other inmates seemed to be trying to gather closer to the scene. The supervisor felt his stomach gurgle in complaint. Why could nothing ever be simple with this lot?

The arrow punk struggled to his feet, helped by the glasses-kid. “WELL SINCE NANA IS IN _DANGER_ , AND YOU FUCKING _ASSHOLES_ ARE DOING ABSOLUTELY _NOTHING_ ABOUT IT, I’M FUCKING _MAKING_ IT MY FUCKING _CONCERN_ , SO **_FUCK YOU!!!_** ”

Hajime raised an eyebrow at the proffered middle fingers and tried to control the urge to smack the brat down twice as hard. He wasn’t sure his ears would survive Kiji’s ensuing shrieks.

“Where do you have evidence that 0307 is in danger? If he tried to escape, then the brat deserves everything he’s got coming to him. Otherwise, I would like to know how you know he’s supposedly in—”

A scream resounded throughout Building 13, almost unbearable in its agony as it bounced off the walls. It lasted for a minute or so, and then fell silent.

Hajime took off down the hallway after the inmates who had begun racing towards the source of the noise.

_This_ was why he hated it whenever a new inmate was brought to the recreation room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All characters belong to Futamata Shou. I just wrote about them.
> 
> Nanbaka is a comedy anime.pdf
> 
> I swear, Kuu is fine, he’s just sleeping. After all this is over, Yamamoto will find him, and there’ll be lots of petting and cuddles for Kuu for being such a brave guard cat.
> 
> Kidnapping is a scary thing though.
> 
> I mean, if an adult just happens to be dressed like a member of staff that a child has to obey, the child probably will obey that adult’s orders and follow them far enough away that by the time they’ve realized something’s wrong, it will difficult for them to attract help from those who actually are looking after them.
> 
> Scary.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a hand is shown.

The guard smiled.

The walk back was taking a little while, but that was okay! Johnny Powers, a.k.a 0307, wasn’t kicking up any fuss at all.

This one seemed to have grown into a model inmate.

At least, that was what the guard thought until he realized Powers had stopped a little way behind him. “Something wrong, 0307?” Had to keep being professional for the time being after all.

The boy was looking around the dark corridor. He seemed even more nervous than before.

“U-um, sir, are you sure this is the right way back to the recreation room? I-it’s just, I thought I saw a lot more cameras leaving there than there are now, a-and we’ve covered a lot more distance…”

The guard turned to the child. “Recreation room? That sounds fun—I’ll have to visit sometime after I drop you off.”

Powers’ little throat looked so small and delicate when he gulped. “…You aren’t taking me back there, are you, sir.”

“Nope!” The guard said, popping the “p” like a balloon between his sharp teeth. “After all, my supervisor would get kinda mad if he knew you were fooling around when you could be helping his research with the wonderful ‘gift’ he fixed you up with, now wouldn’t he, little Johnny?”

The boy’s hands slid into his pockets, though the guard could see their trembling even through the material. “…I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

The guard sighed, green eyes closing in exasperation. “Jeez. Did everyone hit their heads and lose their memories or something? I swear, I feel like I’m in a bad soap opera. Next, you’ll be saying you don’t remember the guy who played so much with you so long ago, just like Jyugo-kun.”

His pretty steel-blue eyes widened, accentuating their glistening. “Jyugo-San? What does he have to do with this?”

The guard’s sharp smile widened as he twirled. “Ev-er-ry-thing, little Johnny-kun. He’s way more important than you were to us— at least he ended up mostly complete before someone attempted to take him away from us.”

A hand raked through blond hair. “I still haven’t thanked your mother for that, you know. That monstrous bitch prevented us from gathering valuable data with her meddling. I’ll make sure to pay her a visit after I take care of you~”

The murderous look dropped from his lips, as a beaming smile replaced it. “Though seriously, how funny is it? All of our wayward experiments, all wrapped up neatly in this box of a prison. Sure, it’s a pain to infiltrate, and we need to just leave the failure and specimen 15 alone for monitoring—”

In the span of a blink, the guard had moved from his position a few feet away to right in front of the child, a knife raised above the boy’s eye. “—we can at least reclaim and fix you, our cute little Johnny-kun~”

The boy yelped, falling backwards into a roll, the blade missing his nose by a few centimeters. He pushed himself onto his feet in time to narrowly avoid the follow-up stab directed at his neck.

The child turned and began sprinting down the hallway, managing to pass the corner in the time it took the guard to wrench his knife out of the ground.

This was new. From reports of the child’s gang activities outside the prison, Powers hadn’t seemed like the athletic type.

Elf grinned. Oh, he was going to have fun with this little surprise~

He took off like a heat-seeking missile.

Powers may have been fast, but his strides were still the strides of a thirteen year old boy. Elf had the advantage of much longer legs and a much more enhanced physique than the child could ever hope to have.

Still, he frowned, it was a problem how Powers seemed to know exactly which turns to make and which paths to run down to retrace their previously walked steps. How—

His eyes caught sight of something long and thin glinting as the boy gained on a corner.

Found it.

A knife whistled through the air and sliced the taunt wire just as the inmate reached the corner.

“NO!!” The child’s high shriek was like music to the guard’s pointy ears, as was his scream when Elf leapt for him with a bone-saw at the ready, forcing him to abandon his attempts to find the thread that would have lead him out of this labyrinth.

He laughed, high and delighted, like a child who had discovered the joy of burning ants under a magnifying glass. “Wonderful, Johnny-kun, absolutely wonderful! You’ve gone and developed more undiscovered skills for us to fix up on you!! Back when we used to play, you could barely run a meter without getting tired, look at you now!!”

The boy did not reply, too busy trying to avoid the swipes of the bone-saw and the newly produced dagger. Annoyingly, though his sleeves were becoming progressively more tattered, he was doing exceptionally well.

Elf’s lips dropped into a moue of dissatisfaction. How was he supposed to awaken the dormant cells within him at this rate? “But, you know Johnny-kun, isn’t it kind of inconsiderate that you’re not using the wonderful gift that gentleman gave you? He worked really hard to draw it out, you know? Spending all that time on a screaming five-year-old brat, it’s really ungrateful that you’re not even bothering to validate all the pain he had to put you through~”

The mention of that seemed to spark something in the child, as he froze momentarily. Elf used the opportunity to shove him into the nearest wall, one arm locked behind his back while the other was pinned at his side by his own body weight.

Finally. Elf licked the blade of the cleaver. It had his blood cells on there already, but it never hurt to be safe than sorry on these sorts of things. The inmate’s eyes were wide and frightened as they watched his tongue, struggling futilely against his hold with frightened whimpers.

“So, Johnny-kun, if you don’t want this inside you right now, how about you tell me to stop? Order me to stab this knife into myself with that lovely Conquerer’s Voice we gave you. Let me see how well you can compel somebody to do what you tell them to, how complete to you their obedience is. It’ll be seriously painful for you if you don’t~” Elf’s voice oozed like oil slick. Of course, even if Powers brought it out, he doubted he would actually be able to dictate anything to the guard. Even if he did, there was nothing to say that Elf couldn’t just stab him with another knife afterwards.

He really loved his job.

The specimen went still under him, seemingly processing his words. His brow furrowed, and his eyes got a delightfully focused look in them.

He opened his mouth, and Elf leaned forward slightly in anticipation.

“So you’re to blame for fucking him up so much!”

…

What?

And then a searing pain branded itself across Elf’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All characters belong to Futamata Shou. I just wrote about them.
> 
> Nanbaka is a comedy anime.pdf
> 
> In which the guard reveals his true identity, and gradually realizes that he may have bitten off a bit more than he can chew.
> 
> Also known as what was happening while Hani’s hand was being ripped off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is something completely different.
> 
> Warning for violence.

Somewhere in the outskirts of Tokyo, far from the island Nanba Prison was situated on, a group of Englishmen were celebrating.

They were a fairly large group, all crammed into the closest equivalent of a pub that could be found. Their rowdiness and threats towards anyone who happened to glance over for a moment too long had caused all but the most unperturbed and unnoticeable patrons to leave the establishment.

The manager ought to have kicked them out long ago, but all he was doing was standing in the back, giving orders to his staff to facilitate the group’s drinking and feasting, smiling so widely that all of his teeth were showing and his eyes were tearing up from the force of it. The wait staff and any of the chefs who had left the kitchen to see what was causing all the ruckus bore the same expression.

The high school girl who was the only Japanese member of the party seemed to have it carved into her face, as she giggled at a pitch similar to a scream and translated everything her English compatriots told her to, leaning into the arm of the boy who seemed to be at the center of it all.

For the seventh time that night, one of the men stood on his chair, his beer sloshing unsteadily in his glass. “A—a toasht!” He cried, “A toasht t’ the besht, sm-smartesht, and shtrongesht bosh of— of the whole bloody world! The firsht man to break outta—outta—whatever the hell that prishon was called!! To Johnny!”

All the other men in the room cheered and downed as much of their liquor as their mouths could hold, some of them overestimating their capabilities.

Johnny Powers gulped down his rum and coke, and smiled.

Everything had gone off smoothly in the end. Sure there had been a few hitches, but what could ya expect from a bunch of bozos who were better at scraping and cowering than thinking for themselves?

Still it was a little ridiculous that it took seven tries for them to find a suitable replacement. The kids they brought back were downright insulting— too much acne, too chubby cheeks, squinty eyes that were too close together, crooked teeth, big ears with detached lobes, the wrong jawline—honestly, he had an _image_.

If a kid arrived at Nanba who didn’t at least somewhat resemble his own good looks, there was no way they would have been able to pull it off.

“Don’t use that kinda language in front of my boy, Stevens.” Barked a stern looking middle-aged woman with a bruise on her right cheek and muscles to rival some of the most experienced fighters in the world.

“Sh-shorry Ma!” Stevens tried to make a conciliatory gesture, and fell off his chair, cracking his head and his glass on the table, much to the mirth of the room.

Johnny looked up at his Ma with adoration. Of course she’d be the one to sort this all out, even at her own expense. She was his Ma after all. “‘S your cheek alright Ma?”

“Never better Johnny. Can’t even feel what that brat did to it anymore.”

“I’m glad.” The thirteen-year-old beamed happily. It was the same smile he’d give to bank guards asking where his parents were before unloading a clip of bullets into them. “I still think ya should’a let me repay him for that. I wouldn’t have cut him up _that_ much, honest.”

Ma Powers stroked her boy’s soft hair. “But we’d gone through all the trouble to find one that looked like ya, Johnny boy, we didn’t have time to get another one after you got through with him. Besides, he’s paying for it already by taking your place, isn’t he?”

“Suppose.” Johnny shrugged. The seventh replacement was the closest to his ideal looks, but only _just_. Kid had pissed him off by pretending to be brave and growling that he didn’t know who Johnny was, but he was going to make Johnny regret this.

It was _hilarious_ when seven started screaming as number six offed itself by slamming its head into the the boat’s wall over and over, legs scrabbling on the floor and body straining towards the imperfection against the guys holding him back, begging it to stop even after six’s lifeless body had slumped to the floor. Six’s death wasn’t as entertaining as when five had chewed through his own wrists, but it got the job done.

The fear in seven’s eyes as he realized that Johnny had done that, and that would happen to him if he disobeyed the orders which embedded themselves into his very being was something that Johnny would treasure for a _long_ time.

Nails Nathan, cheeks flushed from trying the Japanese rice wine he called “sake”, began giggling to himself as he nibbled on the stubs that served as his fingernails. “We did good by getting that one, didn’t we Johnny? That one was almost a perfect match for ya?”

“Yeah, yeah, ya sap.” Johnny flapped an arm in his direction, wrapping the other around the arm candy he’d picked up back in the port after they’d successfully dropped off the seventh replacement. “How’d ya get that one, anyway?”

Nails puffed himself up. “Well, me and Ma was driving along this one road to get to the port where they was going to be shipping you off from Johnny, when all of a sudden I see this kid standing on the side of the road, thumb up like hitchhikers do, ya know?”

The fifteen year old tried to imitate the gesture, giggling uncontrollably when his hand wavered under the effects of all the alcohol he’d consumed.

Another gang member yelled “Get on with it!” as the others also settled in to hear the story, conversations dropping to a low lull.

“So, so I tell Ma to get into the back, and once Ma’s in the back, I pull up and ask the kid “hey, you wanna ride?” And now I’m close I can see the kid looks a lot like ya, Johnny, and the kid says “yeah, I need to get to town” and the accent is English, so it sounds a little like ya if, like, ya were making ya voice really high-pitched, right Ma?”

Ma Powers grunted. “A little.”

“So I tell the kid to hop on in, and when she does and closes the door, Ma slaps the chloroform over her face! Kid put up a fight, elbowing Ma in the face, kicking the windscreen and me before the drug finally kicks in, then the kid’s out like a light until we’re already on the boat and out to sea! Think I did a good job on shaving her long hair all short, kinda like yours, and giving her the tattoo, though she woke up during that part so I got worried that she would move too much and mess it up. But that kid really did look almost exactly like ya, didn’t she?! Shows that y’are just as pretty as a girl, doesn’t it Johnny?”

Everyone in the room had fallen quiet as all gazes pinned the storyteller and his primary spectator. Even Ma Powers and the perpetually grinning high school girl shifted away minutely.

Johnny had stopped smiling. “Nails.”

“Y-yes Johnny?” Nails, even in his drunken stupor, suddenly began to feel slightly uneasy.

“I think I must have heard wrong. Could ya correct me? ‘Cause I could’ve _swore_ I heard you say that the kid you picked up to replace me in a _male_ prison was a _girl_.”

The unfortunate teenager turned ashen. He gulped, fingers twitching.

“L-look J-Johnny, it-it was—th-that kid looked just like ya, yeah? A-and none of the o-other boys were-were good enough, so-so I figured that-that anyone wo-would do, and—pl-please Johnny, I-I’m sorry, God, pl—”

“Nails.” Johnny ordered, his Conquerer’s Voice taking advantage of the squirming adolescent’s fear to impress his orders into the boy’s being, so even his own mind could not prevent his body from carrying them out. “Go break every bone in your  _fucking_ hands for  _ever_ thinking that it was a good idea to send a  _girl_ in  _drag_ into a  _men’s_ prison a  _MY_ replacement, You _MORONIC_ ** _RETARD!!!_** ”

Nails Nathan stood up, tears streaming down his spotty cheeks. He walked to the bar at the back of the restaurant, pushing past a server who half-heartedly tried to stop him from going behind the bar. There was a steel door that had been left open for the servers to come and go from the kitchen.

Nails Nathan placed his hand in the frame, and slammed the steel door on it as hard as he could.

His scream could be heard from the street outside. He moved his hand up, and did it again. And again. And again. Until every last bone in his hand had broken and his throat was nearly hoarse from screaming.

Then he started again on the other one.

The gang kept their heads down, trying to avoid flinching at every sickening crack and screech. The wait staff’s expression never dropped from the smiling rictus they’d been ordered into, though several of them had tears streaming down their cheeks as they mechanically continued to serve. The high school girl was unable to even do that, as she had been ordered not to a day or so after she was kidnapped from her home on the coast by the boy next to her.

The boy himself was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating in rage. His fists shook and his eyes were wild like a mad dog’s as he muttered a never-ending litany to himself in a high-pitched voice. “Need to find another, truth will be out too soon, need to get out of here, cover will be blown, need to get an eighth—”

“Easy Johnny boy, _breathe_.” Ma soothed. “Even if Nails did something stupid, its alright—”

“HOW!?! HOW IS IT ALRIGHT MA?!” The voice that escaped the gang leader’s throat was like that of a hysterical child preparing to throw the biggest tantrum in the history of tantrums.

“—because if it wasn’t alright, we wouldn’t have made it this far away, would we?” Ma continued, unperturbed at the tone her son was taking with her. “It’s been two weeks, Johnny. If anyone was gonna find out about the replacement, they woulda done it in the first few days. That we’ve lasted this long without that means the kid’s following ya orders. She knows she’ll die the moment someone finds out, so she must be doin’ a really good job hidin’ it.”

Slowly, Johnny’s breathing calmed. His hands relaxed from their clenched fists. “…Ya’re right. Ya’re right, Ma. They woulda…it’s still safe. Can’t defy my voice. _No one_ can defy my voice. Still, I wanna get home to London quick-like, just in case she cracks in the next few days.”

“That’s fine, Johnny. That’s just fine.” Ma soothed, stroking his hair. “We’ll drop the slag off at a waste disposal and catch a plane first thing in the morning, ok? An’ I’ll make ya favorite moussaka when we get home.”

“Hot and bubbling with cheese melted on top?” For the first time since coming to Japan, Johnny sounded like a hopeful and excited, like a boy his age should, instead of like he was an old man who enjoyed the pain and suffering he caused wearing a young child’s face.

Ma Powers smiled. “Just the way ya like it.”

Johnny relaxed, and chatter started up among the gang again as they sensed the danger had passed.

Nails stood up from where he’d been curled in a fetal position behind the bar and hobbled back over to his leader. His hands were bruised black and blue, with several of his fingernail stubs bleeding. “J-j-Johnny, I-I’m sorry, I—”

“Ah, stop blubbering, ya great baby. It doesn’t hurt _that_  much.” Johnny ordered. “Water under the bridge and all that.”

Nails’ pinched expression loosened as the aching in his hands vanished. “Y-yeah. W-well, something like that won’t happen ever again, Johnny, I-I promise.”

“Good.” Johnny stretched out, wrapping an arm around the high school girl and taking no notice of how she had been trembling ever since Ma had mention getting rid of her in the waste disposal. “Now ya lugs better enjoy yaselves while ya can, cause tomorrow we fly for home.”

“Yes boss!” The men cheered, and the party resumed in full swing.

Nobody, not Johnny, not his Ma, not his gang, not the high school girl, not the wait staff, noticed as a salaryman got up, paid his bill, and quietly left.

Walking home in the cool night air, the man turned over what he had learned in his mind.

A famous English criminal at large in Japan! One who was brutally violent and had mysterious abilities to compel others to obey him! Who escaped from the inescapable Nanba Prison no less!

The reporter smiled to himself.

He never expected that he’d get the story of a lifetime when he went to get dinner tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Johnny Powers belongs to Anthony Horowitz. I just made a version of him for the Nanbaka universe, which belongs to Futamata Shou. 
> 
> Seriously though, this does feature violence being enacted on multiple children of different ages. If you are uncomfortable with this, please do not read it!
> 
> Time to introduce Johnny Powers, the person who is supposed to be in Nanba Prison and the one who actually does resemble an angel. Surprisingly, the experiements the Guard with the Scar performed on him to give him his “Conquerer’s Voice” made him worse, but not by much.
> 
> This is who Elf is trying to kidnap in Chapter 4. And yes, Ma Powers is on Enki’s level in strength at least, considering she broke into the Guard with a Scar’s insititution and stole back her son through force alone. She is devoted to her boy, in part because his first manifestation of his voice was to tell her abusive husband to stop hurting her and walk off the roof of their apartment building.
> 
> Nana is “Nana” in two senses. One is his prison number, the other… Well, there’s a reason there are a lot of sharks around Nanba for this time of year.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the fighting continues.

Elf screamed in agony, trying to frantically rub out what had assaulted one of his most delicate senses.

His _EYES_!! What the _fuck_ had that little _brat_ thrown into his **_EYES_**?!!

His painful blindness was then compounded when a pair of feet landed solidly in his gut, propelling him away from his target and winding him.

“Now look what you’ve gone and done. Do you have any idea, any at all, how hard it is to collect salt and iron filings?” 0307’s voice moved away from him, sounding throughly belligerent and irritated.

“Y-You threw _SALT_ into my _EYES_ , you little _**BASTARD**_?!” He roared.

“And iron filings. Honestly, even with the fact that we get to work with the inventor lady on her projects, it’s really hard to get those you know! Getting the right sized granules that will mix well and aren’t a completely different metal is tricky business! The salt’s even harder, because I have to take just enough from the cafeteria that nobody gets suspicious or thinks I have bad eating habits!”

His voice was coming closer. Elf stepped back and felt something whoosh past where his stomach was.

He struck out, but hit empty air as light footsteps scuttled away from him again.

“I had built up a good stash too! I save all that up just in case a _real_ threat comes along, and then _you_ have to go and make me _waste_ it on you!” 0307 complained, the tremble underneath his bravado showing that the frightened boy from before was not completely gone.

Elf heard footsteps approaching just in time to avoid another two blows, but noticed that he seemed to be stepping back towards the center of the hallway— almost as though he was being _herded_.

Fuck blindness. Elf pulled out a pair of his own daggers and went back on the offensive. He didn’t know who the hell this asshole thought he was, but there was no way he was getting the upper hand in this encounter.

However, rather than dodging, his blade was—caught—on something. It didn’t have the pleasant firm yet yielding texture of flesh, or the tissue-like consistency of fabric.

“And honestly,” The child’s voice sounded slightly out of breath now as he pushed back against the assault, moving away before the second dagger could slice through where he had been. “Why the hell is it that everybody who wants to murder me in here uses knives?! I mean, I already have this souvenir from the last guy, I don’t need more of the same from you! You’re a guard, give me some variety like a gun or a taser or something!”

Elf dashed towards where he’d heard him and struck again, one blow landing on the child’s weapon and one flying free.

The resulting sound wasn’t like the typical clash on steel on steel. The fact that the boy’s blade didn’t immediately give out ruled out anything plastic—ceramic, maybe? That would allow the knife to be smuggled into the prison without setting off any metal detectors.

“Sorry, but I’m trying to do a no-hit-run of this place, and I _really_ can’t afford to have you messing me up.” 0307 grunted.

There was no way this inmate was Johnny Powers. Based on the tabs kept on his behavior Powers still preferred to let others do his dirty work for him, hiding behind his mother’s skirts and the amazing ability Elf’s supervisor had gifted him with.

Powers didn’t have the speed to outrun Elf, nor the stamina to continually evade his knives all this time.

Elf grinned. While unexpected, this replacement held potential for many new avenues of research. Based on his exclamation earlier, his subbing-in for Powers hardly seemed voluntary. And he was clearly stronger than a normal child, making him an ideal test subject to fix up.

All Elf needed to do was cut him once, and he would belong to them, forever.

He could only hear the kid once he started moving, not see any indications of what his body was preparing to do beforehand. So he listened carefully for the brat’s footsteps, and the guide his voice provided to avoid incoming blows and return a few of his own.

The only problem was that the inmate was agile. He kept darting in to try and score little swipes before dancing back out of reach, constantly circling and changing direction so he couldn’t even stab where he thought the replacement might going.

Every three times Elf struck, his blades would be caught on the child’s once, and slice harmlessly through empty air twice.

Trying to blink the salt out of his eyes only seemed to drive the pinpricks of metal into the sensitive flesh, and when he tried to swipe his arm across them to get rid of the worst of the damage, the brat would attack ferociously to obstruct those plans.

It was galling, but he was being forced on the defensive.

“A-and I have no clue what you w-were going on about earlier, with Jyu-Jyugo-San and ex-experimenting on kids,” 0307 panted, tiredness coloring his tone, “Buh-But you try any of that on any-anyone here and—and I swear I will viv- _vivisect_ you.”

His breathing was getting heavier, and he hadn’t been quite as quick dodging out of the way.

Elf lashed out, using the hilt rather than the blade. There was a satisfying smack of flesh and the inmate cried out, the delicate dancelike steps stumbling as he attempted to regain his footing.

He pocketed a dagger and managed to grasp the brat’s little throat, slamming him down onto the floor and pinning him under his body weight with a knee in the small of his back.

Swiping an arm across his eyes alleviated some of the burning and gifted him with the glorious, if blurry sight of his pestilence turning red as he gasped for breath, a pretty bruise blooming on his temple.

He hefted his other knife. “Finally. Don’t you _ever_ shut up? Even if you have a nice tenor, every voice gets grating when you go on, and on, and _on_.”

A thought struck him. The figure beneath him was awfully slim, and he could hardly feel an Adam’s apple in the throat he was currently choking…

Elf’s grin was like a shark’s as he leaned down to whisper. “Or should I say _alto_ , little miss?”

The girl beneath him went stiff as a corpse, exhausted breathing growing ragged with fright.

Elf took a moment to enjoy the expression up close before pushing his dagger in between her shoulder blades.

The only thing he’d forgotten was that she had a knife as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All characters belong to Futamata Shou, I just wrote about them.
> 
> And so, it has finally been reached. The beginning of the end.
> 
> Yes, it is Elf’s screams that alert those in the recreation room to the fact that something is wrong.
> 
> I based Nana’s fighting style off of those of weasels and mongooses— constantly circling around, darting forwards and backwards to confuse enemies and prey, looking for an opening to strike.
> 
> Nana is employing a coping mechanism here though. He’s trying to think of this situation in video game terms, I.e. Nanba is a “level” that he must do a “no-hit-run” on to pass, and enemies are “NPCs” instead of people. That’s why he’s mouthing off to Elf as though he’s a character in a video game that can’t hear him— it also doesn’t hurt that this behavior usually pisses off most of Nana’s opponents.
> 
> Why doesn’t Nana just run away back to the recreation room? Simple. He has NO idea where the room is, as he has no idea how Building 13 is laid out. The only reason he’s gotten as far as he has was thanks to Hani’s wire acting as a sort of Ariadne’s thread.
> 
> Also running back without dealing with Elf first runs the risk of exposing all the inmates in the recreation room to him…
> 
> For those of you who want a visual of Nana’s fighting to go along with the description, this is the closest approximate for it: youtu.be/QzBZCao0kLE


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nana’s point of view is heard.

Nana hefted himself up onto his elbows, coughing weakly.

He tried to stand, and keened in pain when his legs screamed in complaint as a result, millions of aches springing to life when he moved them.

He compromised by pulling himself to the nearest wall using his arms. They hurt too, but as the pain was minutely less, he figured they could suck it up until he was slumped against the wall, panting from the exertion.

He was so exhausted he wanted to throw up. The bags under his eyes were probably suitcases at this point.

His eyes drifted over to where the ceramic knife lay, after that not-guard had ripped it out and fled off into the depths of Building 13. His shoulder twinged from slamming it back into one the wannabe fairy bastard’s stupid, pointy ears.

The not-guard’s scream surely attracted some attention, and real guards would surely be along any minute now. Nana tried to glance down at his sleeves to see if any incriminating blood spatter had gotten onto them, but for some reason his vision was blurry and something hot was dripping down his face.

“— _Fucks’ sakes._ ” He muttered brokenly, trying to wipe off his tears on his shoulders since his traitorous arms had now decided they weren’t going to work either. He should not be crying like a baby after just that. It wasn’t even the worst fight he’d been in! He was fine, he hadn’t even gotten a scratch on him despite the close shave at the end there!

But his body, his stupid traitorous body, kept trembling and crying, spasming like it was caught in the aftershocks of an earthquake. It had been _so close_.

He hadn’t stabbed his would-be kidnapper because he was about to be stabbed himself. He could handle knife wounds, like the one he was currently sporting in his lower back thanks to that shitty serial-killer Hani-sa— Hani- _senpai_ had managed to frighten off.

He’d stabbed him on instinct. Because, in that fleeting moment, Nana was terrified the next words to come out of the adult’s mouth would be the ones that could kill him.

“ _You’re not Johnny Powers._ ”

He let out a dry snort. Johnny-fucking-Powers. Always came back to that prick, didn’t it.

It was because of _him_ that Nana was in this mess. _His_ enemies that kept popping up to make Nana’s precarious balancing act more complicated than it already was. _His_ orders that forced him to carry out this charade and live in fear in case anyone—even his well-meaning cellmates or caring supervisor— should discover the truth.

Going to any length to hide his true gender, avoiding doctors when he needed treatment, using a smokescreen of steam from boiling water while washing, even forcing himself to use “he” and “him” in his own head.

That pointy-eared bastard had proved that there were plenty of enemies around who had weird abilities—even blinded, his speed and strength had the boy using all of his training just to avoid being nicked. With guys like him and Powers running around, Nana wasn’t willing to put telepathy out of the realm of possibility just yet.

The fear churning through his veins was just another reminder of how weak he was. He hadn’t been able to save that poor kid or any of his predecessors, hadn’t been able to defy Powers or find a loophole no matter how hard he tried or what limits he pushed.

It would always come back, ringing clear as a gunshot while his heart spasmed and breathing cut off.

“ _I don’t care how it happens—talking, writing, drawing, hell, even interpretive dance; ya tell anyone ya’re not me, ya’re dead._ ”

If he ever saw Powers again, Nana vowed tearfully, he was going to make him _wish_ he’d just killed him in that bloodstained boat and thrown his body into the ocean with the others.

Footsteps broke his self-pitying reverie. They were coming closer by the second, the pounding resounding of the walls, testifying to their speed and number. But it was a surprisingly familiar voice calling out his name, instead of a guard’s.

He shifted more upright against the wall, licked his lips, and managed to croak out, “‘M over here! Hani-senpai, ‘m here!”

Nana opened his eyes in time to see Hani-senpai skid around a corner, looking out of breath and bearing bloody nose that had definitely not been there when he’d left the recreation room.

And, of course, that was when Nana’s body decided that bursting into a flood of fresh tears was the best idea possible.

Hani looked paralyzed for a moment, as though a crying child was a new type of animal he’d never interacted with before. Then he swiftly crossed the room to where he was sitting, whipping out a handkerchief from a pocket and dabbing at Nana’s face.

“You’re a goddamn nuisance, you know that? How do you get assaulted every fucking time you use a public bathroom?!”

Nana hiccuped. “Te-tech-ni-nically, i-it did-didn’t ha-happen in the bathroom th-this time.”

“Shut your damn mouth.” Hani-senpai ordered. “What the hell happened?”

A soft intake of breath, and Trois-senpai was suddenly there, tilting Nana’s head up to get a look at his throat. “Où est le connard qui a fait ça?”

Nana blinked hazily. He must be really out of it to not notice him showing up. “Trois-senpai, ce n’est pas bon de dire des gros mots. Un enfant peut vous entendre.”

Unusually, the reply did not make Trois smile. The French inmate normally enjoyed their banter once he had discovered Nana could speak his native language, taking the opportunity to gossip about Hani-senpai while he was in the room and left impotent with rage as he could not tell if they were complimenting or disparaging him.

“Je m’en fiche. Il y a un fils de putain que je devrais repayer pour ses crimes contre la beauté. Où-est il?” His voice was just as calm as always, but his fingers were shaking the tiniest bit.

Nana winced. “It’s not _that_ bad, is it?”

Hani scowled. “Well, I would be able to offer a better opinion if you two didn’t keep talking _frog_ , but if you’re referring to the damn bruises, yes it is.”

A cold sweat broke out on the boy’s forehead. “K-Kiji-San won’t be mad at me, will he?”

Hani-senpai stared at him incredulously. “Yeah, of course, Kiji’ll be super mad at you for getting choked by some bastard—OF COURSE NOT, YOU IDIOT!! You really think Kiji’s gonna get fucking mad at you when the shithead who did this is to blame?!”

As though their discussion had summoned him, their supervisor rounded the corner, followed swiftly by Sugoroku-San, Yozakura-San, and Gokuu-San. Surprisingly a number of inmates from the recreation room were there as well.

“Nana-chan!” His supervisor knelt down, eyes scanning his face frantically. The overwhelming scent of perfume that accompanied him felt like home. “You aren’t hurt, right?”

He had to swallow a lump that was rising in his throat before replying. “N-no scratches, Kiji-San. I-I got some bruises though, I-I’m sorry, I-I tried no-not to.”

Kiji tilted his head up to look at his throat, and then to the side to see where the pointy-eared bastard had clocked his temple. Nana squirmed, the guilt of letting his supervisor down and not protecting his face well enough eating away at his insides.

“What the hell happened here? Were you trying to escape?” Sugoroku-San barked, glaring at Nana in a way that made him want to shrivel up and die.

“Isn’t it obvious he was assaulted?!” Kiji-San shouted back, running a hand through Nana’s hair soothingly. “Honestly, what kind of a Building are you running here, if your problem inmates are running amok and attacking whoever they feel like?!”

“Our inmates are kept safely under lock and key.” Sugoroku-San growled, glaring at Gokuu-San when he happened to have a coughing fit. “It’s more likely that he ran into our traps while he was trying to get out, you spoil him so much.”

“What kind of traps do you have that they result in these kinds marks, huh?!” Kiji tilted his head back again, prominently displaying the marks that were beginning to feel sore. “Only a human could make these kinds of bruises, so if it wasn’t an inmate, then who was it, huh?!”

“I-it was a guard.”

At the statement, all of the supervisors froze up and stared at him.

“If the-there’s somewhere I-I need to file a formal statement of complaint, I-I’ll do it.” Nana continued, feeling less and less sure of himself with every disbelieving moment that passed. “It was a guard who assaulted me.”

Sugoroku-San looked like he was plotting his imminent demise. “Could you identify this alleged guard?”

Nana concentrated. “He had blond hair, green eyes, pointed ears, sharp teeth, pointy face. If I had to guess, I’d say he was approximately Jyugo-San’s height, maybe a little taller.”

Sugoroku-San did not look impressed with his recall skills. “No guards who work here fit that physical description. So either you start telling the truth quick, or I’ll beat it out of you.”

“I _am_!” Nana shouted, terrified, then winced at the strain that put on his neck. “I had a feeling he wasn’t from this building though. He was wearing a guard uniform and accosted me outside the restrooms, claiming his supervisor had sent him for me. I assumed he meant Sugoroku-San, but after we walked much farther than it should have taken to get back, he revealed that he was not taking me back to the recreation room and pulled a knife on me when I tried to run.”

Yozakura-San spoke up. “Did he mention where he was taking you?”

He shook his head. “No, sir. He did say that he was planning to take me to be, quote “fixed up” by his supervisor, though I don’t know what that means.”

A sharp intake of breath had Nana glancing around to where Jyugo-San was standing. He was trembling, eyes wide and frightened, as though he were having a panic attack. A taller inmate with flame-colored hair seemed to be having a similar reaction.

“It’s Elf.” The taller inmate rasped. “Th-that’s what he said to me when—when—”

Yozakura-San and Sugoroku-San seemed to be the only ones who knew what that meant, as the disbelief had finally slipped from their features, replaced by something Nana was hesitant to call worry.

Kiji-San and Gokuu-San seemed just as at sea as he was. “Who, exactly, is Elf?” Kiji demanded irritably.

“Did he cut you?” Jyugo-San demanded, ignoring Kiji’s screech of “DON’T INTERRUPT ME!!”.

Nana blinked. “He-he tried. I managed to avoid him though, and he ended up stabbing himself in the ear, with that knife.” He pointed, and felt Hani-senpai’s grip tighten on his sleeve.

Of course he would recognize the knife from when the serial killer had tried to murder Nana with it. Nana didn’t look at Hani and kept his gaze fixed on his audience. If he looked, he would give his lie away, and Kiji would never be able to treat at him the same way if he knew that Nana had stabbed a man, even if it was in self-defense.

Jyugo-San exhaled and looked a lot calmer, if a little more tired. Unfortunately, that was not enough to placate everyone.

“And why, exactly, did he stab himself in the ear?” Sugoroku-San demanded, looking like a silverback gorilla who had spotted unfortunate intruders in its territory.

Nana cringed. There was no good way to lie out of this, so the truth would have to do. Some of it, anyway. “You can’t get mad.”

Sugoroku-San scoffed, as though he would be the judge of that.

“…I had a baggie. It was filled with salt and iron filings—small ones, from the inventor’s workshop. When the not-guard tried to choke me, I threw the contents in his face, blinding him. One of his swings went wide.”

Kiji-San blinked in mild stupefaction. “Why on _earth_ did you have something like that?!”

Now for the tricky bit. The truth, but not too much. “My-my mum. She always made me carry around a mixture of those things, to stop fairies from taking me away. They don’t like salt and iron, so if you carry some around, they leave you alone.”

“Fairies.” Nana did not think it was possible for Yozakura-San to sound more unimpressed.

He fidgeted. “Yeah— cause she says they take special people. Talented people. Kids. Babies. They take them away and they play with them, and they twist them into something—something inhuman. And they kill you and the people you love if you don’t play by their rules. Horribly. She was always scared of them taking me, so she made me promise to always carry some around. So I do—or did, before that jerk made me waste them.”

Kiji-San’s face softened, carding a hand through Nana’s hair again. He felt bad about lying—his mother had never said anything of the sort, even if defense against fae was why he carried it around. But Sugoroku-San and Yozakura-San looked a little more convinced than before.

Gokuu-San looked like he wanted to call bullshit, but fortunately for Nana he never got the chance, as the child swayed and nearly faceplanted on the floor of the corridor.

“Nana-chan!” Kiji-San grabbed him by his collar and gradually eased him back.

“‘M fine. Jus-just tired Kiji-San. Running was-was hard.” Nana slurred, feeling his adrenaline and energy leach away.

It was hard to hear what went on after that. Kiji-San lifted him up, declaring that his cell were going back to their Building. There was some argument, something about more testimony, but it seemed it was agreed that it would be better to wait until later, when he was more alert, to do so. Then Kiji walked off, carrying him easily like he hadn’t been since he was very small.

Hani-senpai shot him cautious looks as he followed behind. He would probably draw his own conclusions about why Nana had lied.

Most likely the wrong ones, but that was what kept Nana safe. Adults never thought that children had any real ability to harm them. Protective instincts or simple hubris usually made them underestimate kids. Even if said children had been taught how to kill, how to hurt extensively, they never quite believed it.

Not until it was too late, that is.

It was funny, Nana reflected muzzily as he drifted off to sleep on Kiji’s shoulder. Hani-senpai and Trois-senpai and Kiji-San all saw him as someone to be protected, never thinking that he was in fact the one who would protect them, just as he had left home to become a hero and protect his mum, dad, and little brother.

Because while he may not have _liked_ killing people in as a child soldier, he was sure he could make an exception if Elf decided to show his face around Nanba ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All characters belong to Futamata Shou. I just wrote about them.
> 
> That’s all folks! Thank you to the wonderful people who followed this story to the bitter end. I’ll still make stuff about Nana and Nanbaka, but this is the end of his story for now.
> 
> Translations for the French:
> 
> “Où est le connard qui a fait ça?”: Where is the bastard who did this?
> 
> “Trois-senpai, ce n’est pas bon de dire des gros mots. Un enfant peut vous entendre.”: Trois-senpai, it’s not good to say swear words. A child could hear you.
> 
> “Je m’en fiche. Il y a un fils de putain que je devrais repayer pour ses crimes contre la beauté. Où-est il?”: I don’t care. There’s a son of a whore who I need to repay for his crimes against beauty. Where is he?
> 
> Also, the inmates outside of Building 3 aren’t even supposed to be there. They were left in Yamato and Seitaro’s care only to intimidate/convince them into letting them sneak out and join the search.
> 
> Nico, Upa, Liang, and Qi are currently lost with Yamato.
> 
> Rock and Uno are running around with Seitaro desperately pleading with them to go back to their cell.
> 
> They will all be in big trouble when their supervisors get back.

**Author's Note:**

> All charcters belong to Futamata Shou. I just wrote about them.
> 
> Also, as an aside: I think of the two supervisors who hate Hajime, Samon is the one who is more forthright and actively trying to start shit with him, while Kenshirou is more subtle and just tries to make Hajime’s life as difficult as possible.


End file.
